Beauty Blog

Tag: kanebo sensai

Over the last year I have rehauled my skin care routine. I was going to say “simplified”, but looking at the amount of products in my picture, maybe not. XD I have decided to go as gentle as possible, no harsh washing gels, less alcohol and irritating fragrance, more chemical peeling.

Cleansing

This means I cut out all the mechanical peelings and washing gels. Even the supposedly gentle one I used still irritated my skin (you can tell by how right after washing the skin will be tight and dry and about half an hour to an hour later the skin is oilier than before washing). So that left my cleansing milk Toleriane from La Roche Posay (I use this on makeup free skin only, even if it says it can remove makeup, it’s not very good at it); the Micellar Cleanser from Garnier; and for waterproof makeup the dual phase Camomille cleanser from the Body Shop. That one is okay, but I think when it’s used up I’ll go for another brand.

Moisture

Next step after cleansing is to add moisture back. I do not use any toner at the moment. I ran out (years ago, in fact) and realized I didn’t miss it. So I go right to moisture. You probably heard of Korean skin care by now, and how they layer like half a million products over each other. When I read about that I was like ‘that’s too much work’ but these days I do often use quite a few layers as well. In the midle of the pic you see MACFix+. You often see it mentioned that people spray this on after makeup, and the description on the bottle says it can be used before and after makeup. A look at the ingredients list tells me it’s made of water and some antioxidants – and nothing else. So while you can apply as last layer, the water will simply evaporate and might leave you drier than before. But when used as first layer and then locked in with heavier products, the moisture stays on the skin and the antioxidants can do their work. So when I use Fix+, I do it immediately on clean skin.

Then I start layering eye cream and lip balm (not pictured). My current eye cream is a cheap one from Balea, it has no bad ingredients (as far as I could tell) and a few antioxidants.

The moisturizer is Clinique Moisture Surge. It’s a light gel that, well it does exactly what the name promises. I will always use this when my skin is visibly dry, but at the moment I don’t use it every day. I use different serums (not pictured) and often don’t put anything on top of those. If I wanted to use both a serum and Moisture Surge I will layer the thicker texture over the lighter one.

Sun Care

The morning routine usually goes like this: cleansing, Fix+ and Sun care on top. When I wear makeup it’s usually MACCC Cream with SPF 30. It’s the best option if I want to put something on top. My other options are a mattifying sun cream (not pictured) which leaves my skin super dry if I use it more than two days in a row and the two bottles on here: La Roche PosayRosaliac UV Legere, a great cream with lots of Niacinamide (a form of Vitamin B3 and one of the best skin care ingredients ever) and SPF 15. The cream is slightly green tinted, but applied I don’t really see any difference. However, this one isn’t really good for wearing underneath makeup, as it has a greasy finish. No amount of powder helps here. So sadly despite this being really good for my skin I only wear it when I go makeup-less.

And the last bottle is my all over sun care: Louis Widmer50+ Extra Sun Fluid. I wanted one without any alcohol or fragrance and there were not too many offerings. This one can be used for the body and face, however when I wear it with makeup I get a similarly shiny finish as with the Rosaliac.

Extras

These are the extra helpers. I don’t use them daily. The small grey bottle is the Kanebo SensaiCellular Performance Mask. This is a colorless mask that you can either take off again or wear over night. It gives the skin extra moisture. As this is a smaller size I don’t have a list of the ingredients but I hope they’re not too bad. I use this only when my skin is flaky and often only on the dry parts of my face.

La Roche PosayEffaclar Duo+: Chemical Peeling with Salicylic Acid and Capryloyl Salicylic Acid. I have found that for me it works best used every other day. It makes pores appear smaller (by getting the gunk out) and helps with spots.

La Roche PosayCicaplast: For any kind of emergency, be it extremely dry and reddenend skin or huge spots or whatever else might happen.

And last is CliniqueAnti Blemish Solutions mask, a white clay mask with Salicylic Acid. I use this whenever I feel like it, not too often.

So far the regime works out very well for me. In the future I want to be even more diligent about suncscreen and I’d like to add retinol at some point.

I haven’t ordered any beauty boxes in a while, long enough to get nostalgic about it. 😉 So I decided to get the newest Douglas box.

This is how the open package looked.

The samples in the package (not part of the actual box) were BurberryBrit Rhythm,

and LancomeAdvanced Genifique. Sure, I’ve already got a full size of this, but now I have a small one for travels, too. 🙂

The price for a box was raised from 10 € to 11€ and the number of available boxes was raised from 600 to 800. I’m okay with that.

The content. The Origins product was too big to go inside the neat wrapping. XD

Here we have the star product of the box, OriginsDrink It Up Overnight Mask, 100ml.

List of ingredients. Lots of good oils.

And the rest of the package.

Marc JacobsDaisy Dream Body Lotion 30ml. Well, a perfume mini would have been nice, but you can’t have everything.

Ingredients.

Then there was the ShiseidoBio-Performance Glow Revival Serum, 7ml.

With a long list of ingredients.

And the Elizabeth Arden Flawless Future Caplet Serum, 5ml.

Ingredients.

And the actual bottle. I’m fascinated by these kind of pearls in liquid products.

And the last item: SensaiCellular Performance Mask, 20ml.

Ingredients.

That’s it. I guess this was the super skincare box or something. XD I like how before this box I had exactly zero moisturizing face masks (but I wanted one) and now I have two. The whole box is a bit heavy on the face serums. Personally I like these samples but some people might be disappointed. I still think it’s a good idea that with Douglas boxes, you know one item beforehand (the full size) and the brands of the samples. It means you could guess approximately what you might get. Which is how I skip the boxes that will come with hair products. So I guess people who don’t want too much skin care would not have ordered it, anyway.

I like that it’s full of high quality products and I’m happy I scratched the box itch. 😉

I did not have any empties in April, but I did spring cleaning, so let me show you products I used, but then chucked away half full.

alverdeBlond Conditioner Hopfenblüte Honig: I liked this conditioner, it made hair super soft and easy to brush. But I used it only occassionally (would make hair limp if used too often) and I’ve had it forever and a day and it smelled funky when I found it in the back of the cabinet. So it had to go, but it was not a bad product at all.

Kanebo SensaiPrime Solution: This was supposed to be an additional step in moisturizing, used before any other products to make them work better. I had suspicions it broke me out. It probably didn’t, but it didn’t have any positive effects either. Usually I would let it lie for a few months and then try again. However, the product is impossible to get out. This thing has no pump, and it’s made from several layers of hard plastic, making it impossible to squeeze even a tiny bit. If it was liquid enough to come out on its own, that would be okay. But it was such a hassle getting even the slightest bit of product out, that I decided to give up.

bebe moreFresh Eyes & Face make up remover: it does remove eye make up very well and did not burn inside of my eye. However, it burned on my skin and made it very red. The next day, my skin would be very dry and peel off. This thing is supposed to be for sensitive skin. I beg to differ. I stopped using and chucked it away because I was afraid it would ruin my skin. It took me two weeks of using to come to this decision. I was very determined to like it, and it does remove make up well. But no, wasn’t worth it.

bebe morebrighten up: possibly the worst skin cream I have used, ever. It gives pretty much no moisture at all. It is also highly reflective and not in the good way. It makes you look oily even if your skin is dry. So in my eyes, this makes it unsuitable for any skin type.

The Body Shop100% natural lip roll on: Tastes sweet. Does not do anything else at all. Gives no moisture or protection. My lips cracked a lot and so I threw it out.

The only reason the great majority of Glossybox hair stuff isn’t on there is that I didn’t even open them. I only list things I really tried to use up but couldn’t. By the way, I have unsubscribed from Glossybox for now. I have a backlog to go through and their quality isn’t what it used to be. I might get weak with the one time boxes, though.

For the first time ever I decided to get one of these boxes from Douglas. They are not a subscription in Austria, so it’s a one-time puchase. It was delivered as it should be right the next day, except I had it shipped to my mum on accident so I only got it today.

Bird view into the box.

This LancomeAdvanced Genifique serum came not as a part of the box, but as one of the two freebies. The other one was a perfume sample.

This ClarinsBe-long Mascara was part of the box. My mum immediately called dibs on it, so I can’t give a review of it. It was a sample size of 3 ml (full size is 7 ml).

I’m sorry I have no good individual pics to show; I had no time (my mum kept on grabbing stuff). hellotanh did a great post on the Douglas box of beauty here.

The whole deal included:

RodialGlam Balm Lip Tube with SPF 15 (full size, 7 ml)

Anny6 in 1 Nail Polish (mini size, 6 ml)

Kanebo SensaiPrime Solution (mini size, 10 ml)

ClarinsBe-long Mascara (mini size, 3 ml)

Absolute DouglasLipgloss (full size, 8 ml)

IsadoraSingle Eye Shadow in Nr 11 Almond (one of a trio set; it is super tiny cute but it doesn’t seem like the full sets are bigger)

All this plus the freebies for the cost of 10 € (and no shipping costs!) is great value. I’m tickled silly about the two serums (the Kanebo one seems to be a serum as well as the Lancome Genifique), and Kanebo is such a good brand (but way too expensive). I like the mix of products, a little make up, a little skin care, plus nail polish (and no hair products, thankfully). I’m not a big fan of lip glosses so I’d have prefrerred the full size to be something else, but that’s a minor complaint. I’m glad I threw myself into the fight.

The one I’m not going to miss: Cowshedcow pat moisturizing hand cream. It came in my glossybox a few months ago. Seeing as the last used up post featured two hand creams, I guess you can say I go through hand creams like underwear, only sadly you cannot revitalize hand cream by throwing it into the washing machine. /overly weird metaphor

Anyway I was glad seeing hand cream in my glossybox, since I need so much of it. However…

List of ingredients. Doesn’t look too bad, but I felt like it didn’t help my skin at all. It was very cold here the last few weeks and with this my skin cracked. Unamused. The smell was pretty annoying too. It’s probably the coriander. I severely dislike coriander. And unlike with other products whose smell I didn’t like at first, I didn’t grow used to it! Meh, let’s get to nicer products.

LacostePour Femme Body Cream. This also came in a glossybox and unlike the previous product this was a full win! Note this is not the body lotion for their newest perfume, Eau de Lacoste, but the older Pour Femme. The scent I would call pleasant, sporty and never overpowering. I love it to bits and pieces. This was so far the only glossybox product that got me to buy something related (the matching shower gel).

The ingredients don’t even look all that great, but my skin felt moisturized and whole these months, so whatever. I even started using it on my hands after the above product turned out to be troublesome.

Kanebo InternationalSensaiCellular Perfomance Emulsion II Moist Another glossybox product, a tester of glorious 30ml. Ingredients aren’t listed at the back, so I forgot what was in it. Silk, I believe. This is a very rich face cream and has lasted for months. It lead a brave battle against my dry skin in the winter cold.

Last, but not least, one product that didn’t come in any box: LancomeEau Micellaire Doceur. This is the bigger 400ml bottle.

It’s a typical micellaire type cleanser, suitable for face, eyes and lips. The description says it’s for all skin types, even sensitive. I say “especially for sensitive skin”. You use only the product for taking make up off your face, no water. And boy, does it make a difference on sensitive skin if you don’t need any water. I wasn’t even aware how much my skin was aggravated by water before I switched to the micellaire type cleanser. I will always purchase these cleansers now, but I am switching the brands around (currently using the cheaper La Roche Posay). Lancome’s micellaire has a rose scent, that’s the only negative thing I could list. Face products don’t need scent imo, but I don’t think it hurt my skin either. I liked the pump a lot, very useful. At the end you can unscrew the cap and get the rest out this way.